


Call Out to Her

by OTTSTF



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Good Sister Nancy, Light Angst, Post-Season/Series 01, Pre-Season/Series 02, Sad Mike
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 03:08:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15676800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OTTSTF/pseuds/OTTSTF
Summary: "... if she could let us hear Will through one of these… And she’s out there… Maybe, just maybe, she could hear you if you call out to her.”In desperate times, Nancy helps her brother out as best she can, by sharing a coping method which she herself has been using.





	Call Out to Her

**Author's Note:**

> Me? Mid-S1/S2 story? Me? Write depressed Mike? _Never._

Sniffling. Sobs. Nancy hears them lightly as she walks past the basement stairs. They aren’t the cries of Holly, no – that’s Mike. And, she’s not stupid; she knows exactly why he’d be crying.

It’s the following night after _everything_. After the Demogorgon. After Will returned. _After El vanished._

Carefully, she opens the door and begins creeping down the stairs, not in an attempt to remain unseen, but an attempt to not suddenly startle her brother.

The step beneath her creeks, and Mike’s head shoots towards her. He’s shocked for a brief moment, clearly expecting one of their parents, but his features relax once he finds Nancy there. His eyes are bloodshot; he’s obviously been like this for a while. Nancy has to bite her tongue to prevent her own eyes from watering just at the sight of him.

Now having her presence known, she walks the rest of the stairs at a normal pace rather than creeping. She’s by Mike’s side in an instant, sitting beside him on the basement’s sofa. She wraps an arm around his shoulder, and pulls him in. Immediately, he falls into her embrace; his sobs becoming louder as he lets go.

She smooths his back the same way their mother had always done for both of them, rocking him slightly. She listens carefully as he begins to choke out words through his sobs.

“I- I can’t believe… she’s gone.” he barely manages to get the words out to his sister.  
“She… she did _everything_ for us. She saved Will, and now _she’s_ gone. I-”

His cries  only increase as he tries to get it out.

“I know.” Nancy pats his back gently. “I know.”

  


Minutes pass. Nancy sheds a few tears of her own. Mike is slowly calming down, having let out the majority of his energy. At this point, Nancy’s eyes catch a particular device laying in the fort that Mike had built El. It’s then that an idea springs to mind which she hopes so dearly will help Mike through this struggle.

“Wait here.” she tells Mike, rising from the sofa to head towards the fort.

Mike watches as she lowers, picking up his Supercom from the blanket fort.  
“What are you…” he begins, following a sniffle.

She drops back beside him, placing the communications device into his hand.  
“ She  let us hear Will using one of these, yeah?”

Following a sniffle, scrunching his eyebrows, Mike responds. “Yeah?”

“And you say you saw her in the window?”

“I did.” he immediately answers. “I swear, I swear I did.”

“I believe you, Mike.” she reassures him.  
“What I’m saying is… if she could let us hear Will through one of these… And she’s out there… Maybe, just maybe, she could hear you if you call out to her.”

M ike’ s eyes flick between  Nancy and the Supercom, as he comes to realisation.

“Nancy…” he takes the device from her hands slowly.  
“That’s…”

His hands run over the  radio, as he looks up to his sister.  
“Do you think that’ll work?”

“There’s only one way to find out.” she shrugs. “But, even if she doesn’t respond, I think you should call out to her. Make it a daily thing, or something.” she tells him, her head ducking as she comes to admit the next.  
“I’ve been doing that with Barb… in the hope that there _is_ an afterlife, and she’s listening.”

Mike bites his lip, feeling infinitely sorry for his sister regarding Barbara, which, being confirmed dead by El herself, is an infinitely worse situation to be in than his regarding El. He saw her in the window and he’s  _sure_ of it. He’ll never let anyone tell him otherwise.

“It’s helped me a lot, Mike. I think it’ll help you too.” she says after a moment’s silence.  
“Call out to her. Tell her about your day, that sort of thing.”

He eyeballs the radio again, nodding his head slightly.  
“I will.” he smiles up to his sister, before setting the radio aside to wrap his arms around her. “Thanks, Nance.”

“Of course, Mike. And, listen. If you _ever_ need me, just ask, okay? We’ve… obviously got to act normal in front of mom and dad, but away from them, if you need me, you grab me.”

He nods his head, pulling away now. “You too, Nance. You’ve been through a lot too.”

She smiles at him, nodding her head as she reflects on how he’s changed so much since taking care of El.  
“I will, Mike.”

At that, she sets onto her feet, stopping short by the start of the stairs to look back to Mike.  
“You’ll find her, Mike.” she states as if it’s a fact. “I don’t know when, or how, but one day, you’ll find her.”

Mike smiles, appreciating the infectious hopefulness.

As she reaches the top of the stairs, Nancy hears the crackle of static emerge from Mike’s radio as he settles into the blanket fort, before hearing his voice, much more confident in himself than just minutes before.

“Hey, El. It’s me, Mike. Day one…”

**Author's Note:**

> As much as I'd love to believe this is how the calling started. But I doubt that. Mike absolutely would think of that himself.  
> Either way, the idea came to mind and I _had_ to write it.  
>  I wanted to publish another story alongside to make up for the sadness but it's 01:11 (coincidence? I think not), and I _kinda_ work which makes this a hard thing to keep up :(
> 
> Thanks as always. Love you all! ♥


End file.
